


honeymoon

by starsoup



Category: Block B
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 18:32:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsoup/pseuds/starsoup
Summary: This is Kyung’s second chance, as if he had been reincarnated since that night all those years ago, when everything had fallen apart. In some ways, it had felt as if they had all died that night.





	honeymoon

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to stellar evolution but you can totally ignore it if that story was enough for you, or just consider it a stand alone piece!

9:30 AM.

There's a family breakfast type of thing going on. He's taking his girlfriend, not that it's anything new. She'd been introduced to his family within a month of their dating. 

He likes her, she's quiet and amiable. She's nothing like people he's loved before. 

He’s home for the first time in several weeks. Upon hearing that both he and his sister would return home for the same weekend, his parents had insisted they spend the day together, as a family. 

Kyung stands before the mirror and straightens his tie. In the reflection he can see his sister enter the room.

She approaches him and smooths out the stray strands of his hair and stops with a hand at his shoulder. She watches their reflection and Kyung does too, but when she gives a tight-lipped smile, he doesn't try to mimic the false cheeriness. That upsets her, it always does.

"You're always so gloomy. Don't you have any friends or anything?" 

He knows she means well for him. Yet he still hesitates when mentioning his friends, Jiho's friends, whatever's left of them. But it's unavoidable at times as such when her worries are impossible to soothe otherwise. 

"I do, but they were his friends too." 

She frowns. 

"Kyung, you should meet new people," She suggests, picking up her tone and recovering as if she hadn't let the disheartened expression slip. 

Kyung stops watching her in the reflection to turn and face her properly. "See, this is why I wouldn't tell Mom, and wouldn't tell you before. They're my friends."

Taken aback, she's quick to shake her head and clarify softly, "That's not what I meant, I'm sure they're good people, Kyung. It's just that they must remind you of him..."

Kyung stubbornly refuses to speak, closing off once again. He knows his sister hates it when he does but he can't help it. 

He has moved on. His sister bringing up the past upsets him. It isn’t relevant to who he is now, so why tirelessly try and revisit what has already been done when it has no importance to him anymore? He has buried remembrance far under his feet, in dirt packed hard like stone, never to be unearthed. There is no space for letting sadness bloom from it.

"You know I just worry about you," She tries again, moving to take his hand. He lets her, trying to keep from giving away the extent of his sorrow. 

In a whisper she adds, "I wish you had never met him, he hurt you so much." Her voice is so sad, as if she had suffered with him. 

It has been nearly seven years since Jiho left. Kyung is twenty-five now and the past is in the past but somehow it still eats holes in his dreams some nights. 

Up until two years ago, he had tried therapy. It started fine, not necessarily helpful, but not in any way harmful either. The woman he spoke to was in her mid-thirties, a picture of her child and husband set on the desk beside her and the mention of God often on her tongue. 

It was inevitable that Kyung would talk of Jiho. All his frustrations seemed to stem from those two years that he had known him. It wasn’t that Kyung simply mentioned Jiho, he spoke of him in length. He had felt as if he had kept his romantic feelings towards Jiho well concealed, but as time progressed, it appeared that he had given a different impression to the therapist.

She brought her hands together and offered a sympathetic smile. “Kyung, have you ever had homosexual desires?” 

He had become quiet then. She continued, of course she did, wanting to reassure and comfort him. “It's not all that uncommon, and people with these sexual desires can be fixed, you can always return to God's path,” she had said.

He had assured her that she misunderstood, but the topic returned at times regardless. Again, some weeks later she had asked about it after Kyung once more referred to his late-night runaways with his (secret) high school sweetheart. 

“He gave me his jacket,” Kyung concluded for maybe the hundredth time since he had first started seeing the therapist, “Because it was cold and I never remembered mine and he was a good friend.” 

She nodded slowly, bringing her hands together. “He's in all your stories,” she had mentioned, that too being highlighted often, “Did he ever behave inappropriately with you?” 

Honestly, Kyung was taken aback. It sounded accusatory, but not towards Kyung for once, but instead towards Jiho. Kyung denied it, laughing awkwardly. Inwardly, he was offended. 

“You were very close to him, it sounds. You had no girlfriend at the time?”

Her growing persistence on unearthing the truth of his sexuality tired Kyung. It made the therapy feel counterproductive. 

“No, but I know what you're getting at.”

She frowned briefly, tucking loose strands of hair behind one ear and leaning forward slightly to be heard when she spoke quieter. “It's okay if you had had impure thoughts of him once, getting better starts with admitting your faults. And homosexuality can be cured, there's nothing to be afraid of.” 

Kyung had wanted to laugh at her. There was a lot to be afraid of. 

“I'm not like that, I had never wanted to be with a man,” Kyung insisted.

But he did.

He had thoughts at that age too, of firm, lean bodies. Of rough, calloused hands against his own body, of blunt nails digging into his skin, of broad shoulders pressed into the mattress below him. Of his name called, whispered, moaned, sinfully good, by deeper voices, undeniably masculine voices. He wanted harsh angles, hard muscle under smooth skin and to feel that underneath himself and to feel pleasure from it. 

And sometimes, once years before, he had had memory of Jiho. He had chalked it up to being simply because he had never been with any other man, and without anything else to reference in his desires, he had no choice but to call upon those memories. But then in a moment of painful embarrassment he had learned the thought was too persistent. And it was with guilt, that even while dating women, thoughts of how he had once held Jiho, how the older man had sounded coming undone under his fingers, how he would be different now, frequently preoccupied his mind. He had felt disgusted with himself for letting those memories merge with new. Of course, he never told anyone of that, and the shame seemed to eventually silence those thoughts.

When therapy failed him, he had thought about writing it all out. It would be painstakingly put together at first as a monologue, then a story maybe with pages, then chapters of what he had felt. But he never gets to writing it. In hindsight, it was a bit absurd to think of doing anyway. It would end up something like an ode to the man he once loved, and all love letters are the same. They all end in the same lingering misery.

It had been early on that he had decided to leave the past behind. _No more_ , he had decided. This was an undeniable part of his identity, and he had no quarrel with that in itself. He knew he liked men and had no shame in it. But he also knew that that was a harder life than he wanted, and so that type of attraction was willfully ignored for his own good. He'd never fall in love with a man again because he had learned his lesson, one that left him much too tired to ever want to face complications ever again.

Only, once in the seven years since Jiho's leaving, Kyung had met another man at a club. 

Mainly he had indulged in the act because he felt an obvious contempt towards that man. And he felt that indifference was returned. The mutual lack of interest made it easy. 

The other man had swirled his drink around, mainly ice now. They had been talking for much of the night, and by now Kyung had learned the secret cues of men like himself. The other knew it too. It was only a matter of time before they reached the topic.

“You're single,” the man had observed. He was taller than Kyung, with a thin, wiry frame and dark circles under his eyes. His lips, soft and pink and full, remained in a constant scowl. 

Kyung conceded easily, breathing out from his nose and nodding. “Can't find anyone worth the time.” He wasn't looking, but that didn't need to be shared.

The other man watched the counter, then Kyung’s fingers as they drummed against the wooden surface of it. “You've got a lot of baggage, you’re damaged,” he had said bluntly, tapping two fingers against his own temple. Kyung had felt annoyed at that. 

He kissed him, didn't like the taste of alcohol, kissed him again. In a bathroom stall, back against the door, he had for the first time since Jiho, experienced another man. 

He pushed the other down by his shoulders. Kyung watched without excitement the head between his thighs. It wasn't long, he's sure, but it was hard to tell when there was some sort of detachment from it all. In the silence there was only the obscene, wet sound of the other man's mouth, no sound from Kyung save for the stifled grunting as he took a fistful of the others hair to drag him closer, to make it all end sooner. He had no attachment, none of what happened mattered as long as he was satisfied in the end. 

But that was nearly four years ago, and not long after he had started dating his current girlfriend. 

At first, the guilt had been persistent. She had no idea of his sexuality, and it felt more like a lie than a secret. 

But he genuinely likes her, she’s sweet and has a pretty smile. He knows he doesn’t love her like he did Jiho (and he feels incredibly wrong for having even compared the two, she deserves better), but he isn’t unhappy with her. She’s a good presence in his life. 

It’s around 10:30 AM. He leaves home to pick up his girlfriend. 

“Kyung,” She calls affectionately as he parks his car before her driveway. This is inconvenient. He’s thought about asking her to move in with him. He doesn’t see why not; he can’t imagine a future with anyone else. There really isn’t much point in waiting much longer. He knows she loves him. 

She sits in the passenger seat and leans across, expecting a kiss that Kyung doesn’t hesitate to give. Her lips taste like artificial cherry. 

He thinks often of what keeps himself from marrying her. Maybe he’s afraid of commitment. 

Reasonably, there is no harm here. In fact, there are days where Kyung finds himself indulging in happy thoughts of a future full of mundane happenings; a simple life with his wife, still encapsulated in suburban familiarity, perhaps even with children, and a dog, and everything else people want. 

Even with these simple joys often calling to him, there’s a gentle tug at his heart that keeps him from pursuing it. Some days he feels that all the hardship having led to this is counterproductivity at its finest. It’s a real tragedy that all the losses had been only for him to return to the path he had always been destined. Normalcy. 

Regardless, Kyung is certain he will find the courage to embrace the inevitable soon. It might appear daunting now, but he’s done more challenging things. This should be easy. 

The majority of the day goes by in him greeting relatives and speaking with his family, his girlfriend always holding to his arm or following behind with her hand held in his. 

He takes her home and she spends the night. She usually does. It doesn’t make sense to live apart. But he avoids the topic.

She knows he’s jumpy. When they first met, she had often teased him about it, laughing softly and slapping his arm. She thinks they are opposites, because Kyung is so quiet and reserved, whereas she is light-hearted and gentle. In reference to what she knows about him, she’s right. Kyung is nowhere near as friendly and bright as she is.

He might have been as such once. However, that is years ago. In fact, it feels as if it were a separate lifetime. Since then, things have changed, and most definitely he has too. 

Kyung makes breakfast with her, frying eggs as she sets two tall glasses on the counter and heads for the fridge. He glances over his shoulder and watches her.

She waits until they’re both halfway into their meals before speaking up. She is hesitant, prompting her concerns carefully, words enunciated with nervous clarity, “We’ve been together for a long time, Kyung. How much longer?” 

Kyung frowns, setting his fork down. He struggles to keep his panic from turning into annoyance. He hates to be angry with her, even on accident. “We’ve talked about this before, you know how I feel.”

“I know, but my parents, Kyung. I’ve told you before.”

He isn’t sure how to curb this conversation for much longer. If avoided today, it is only a matter of time before she brings the question back into the open. And he doesn’t blame her, she’s right. They aren’t getting any younger, they’re at the prime of their lives. Why wait? 

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to put you in this position.” 

She frowns yet reaches across the table to take Kyung’ hand anyway. He thinks of how he really doesn’t deserve her patience. 

He gives her a quick kiss, promising he’ll take her out for dinner, before disappearing out the door for work. 

 

Yoon watches Kyung light a cigarette. “How’s your girl?” 

In the several years that Kyung has known Yoon, he hasn’t changed much. He still has blunt cut bangs that obscure his eyebrows and make him look five years younger than he really is. Even now, leaned against the hard, concrete wall of Kyung’s workplace, both on their breaks, there’s that tinge of boyish handsomeness to Yoon’s features that reminds Kyung of when they were teenagers.

Without sparing a glance in the other’s direction, Kyung first takes the time to exhale a plume of wispy grey smoke, then answers, “She’s alright. She’s getting antsy about things again though.” 

The other man raises his eyebrows and nods, shoving his hands in his pockets. When he doesn’t say anything, Kyung takes it as queue to continue rambling about the misfortunes of his life. This is routine.

“I know we’ve been together pretty long, but we can’t just rush into marriage. Her parents keep pushing the thought though.”

Yoon rolls his eyes and looks in the other’s direction again, “Kyung, you’ve got other reasons for avoiding it and we both know that. It’s not rushing when she’s been hinting at it so long that she had to tell you directly.” 

Kyung looks to him this time, dropping his cigarette to the ground and pressing the toe of his shoe to it, grinding it into the asphalt underfoot. “Yeah, yeah. I don’t know how to get over it, it’s a big deal to me, okay?”

Pushing away from the wall and stretching his arms above his head, Yoon shifts the focus of the conversation with another deep sigh. “You did good meeting her. You got really lucky. Guess its fate that you broke up with Jiho, imagine the damage he’d have been in the long run. Your girlfriend now is an angel. You should be careful not to lose her.” 

The words are spoken in good humor, a lighthearted lilt to Yoon’s voice making it clear there is no harm in what he says. However, had it been anyone who knew him less, the comment would not have been tolerated. 

“Yeah, you’re right, I know. It’s what everyone tells me, she’s amazing,” Kyung concedes, combing fingers through his hair to fix it, “I’m going to go. I’ll see you around.” 

Kyung walks back inside thinking about their conversation, trying to muster the courage to move on in his relationship. His friend is right in every sense. This is Kyung’s second chance, as if he had been reincarnated since that night all those years ago, when everything had fallen apart.

In some ways, it had felt as if they had all died that night. Life is different without Jiho. And Kyung is haunted by it, but he is not crippled. They speak of Jiho in casual because there is no way to avoid how real he had been, and how integral he once was to their lives. 

Jiho is in the past.

And yet, for reasons Kyung fears to investigate, that night he falls asleep to the tune of a familiar song that he had long ago lost the name to, and in his dreams comes to him the image of a boy with coal black hair and a wide, toothy smile who calls his name with one syllable too many, _Kyungie_ , and despite his best effort to not be swayed by the chiming voice, he is drawn to it as if under the charm of a siren, and he awakens wishing he could purge himself of the memory. 

 

“I’m going out of town for work,” Kyung announces, setting a suitcase on the bed. 

His girlfriend watches worriedly from across the room, sat cross-legged in a big arm-chair against the wall. 

“You’ll be back soon, right?”

He turns his back to take clothes from the dresser. 

“I don’t know.”

“Hurry home, okay? I’ll miss you, but I trust you.” 

Kyung stills. Under his fingers is the clean, pristine fabric of an ironed white shirt. 

“Don’t say that,” He mumbles, avoiding eye contact even as he turns back to facing the luggage. Even in his peripheral vision, he can see the concern in her expression.

“I’m sorry, Kyung, I know you don’t like that sort of talk.”

He makes an effort to maintain softness to his words, finally meeting her gaze, “It isn’t your fault, don’t apologize.” 

She musters a smile. “I’ll miss you, be back soon, okay?”

Kyung manages a smile in return. 

 

The sky is a faded blue, color leached from it by the heat. The whole drive out is uninteresting, fields of wheat wrung out and hung to dry, absolutely drained of vibrancy. For miles in every direction there is nothing, only the empty hulls of sun-cooked crops. 

He kills half an hour smoking in the parking lot outside a beaten-up motel, preoccupied in other thoughts so that when the sun drops down below the horizon, he doesn’t notice. When it belatedly occurs to him, he twists the cigarette against the handrail and lets it drop to the ground below, shoving his hands in his pockets and heading for the door.

The bed doesn’t look worth trusting. But he’s been in worse. He’s lived days like this before. 

He watches the ceiling overhead and tries to sort out his thoughts. He wants clarity and courage. He wants to embrace the life that has always been awaiting him. 

Time inches past and he feels as if the mattress under him has all drained the energy from him. He can’t be bothered to leave again, so he puts off eating for the following day. 

Having left his girlfriend with a lie might not have been the best decision he’s ever made. But he needs the time away. 

He doesn’t have any work reasons to be here. He just wants to do away with the world, even if for only a moment. Sometimes that’s really all that is necessary. 

For most of the morning, he picks a direction and drives, stereo shut off. Barely anything clings to his mind, once anything has past, it is forgotten. The view is lost on him.

Kyung parks the car outside a convenience store. There’s something a bit sad about walking in alone if he thinks about days when he was a teenager, crowding around the counter with his friends, being far too loud and yet too caught up in their own world to even realize it. 

The man at the counter is old, gray hairs poking out from under his cap and lines creasing his face. He makes small talk as he rings up Kyung’s purchase. 

He’s turning to leave when an outdated brown frame on the wall catches his attention. It looks neglected, age having done its number on the paint, making it peel and turn dull. Set carefully inside is a drawing. 

Kyung tilts his head slightly. Something draws him to the framed art work, a bubble of curiosity, a prick of something else, sticking to his veins. 

He leans closer to it to inspect it thoroughly. “It’s a good drawing,” Kyung comments. 

He could stare at it for an eternity. 

The store owner looks amused despite his bewilderment at how Kyung remains fixated on the work displayed on the wall. 

Kyung reaches out, fingers ghosting over the corner of the frame. A thin film of dust is settled over it. It must have lacked the attention for a long time. The thought makes Kyung’s heart throb with a dull ache. 

“Some boy who used to work for me made it a few years ago. Woo Jiho, his name.”

_“What?”_

Those words finally have him tear his gaze away from the wall, whipping around so fast that he’s almost dizzy for a moment, head swimming in a pool of confusion. 

“His name is Woo Jiho. He’s still around. I can give you his number, but I don’t know if he still does artwork.”

Even though everything he has done for the past seven years has been in effort of thwarting something like this very moment, Kyung walks out with a slip of paper tucked into his pocket, burning a hole in his conscience, weighing heavy like lead. 

When he returns to the motel later that night, he takes the slip of paper from his pocket and unfolds it, setting it on the nightstand beside himself. The yellow glow of the lamp illuminates it in a soft haze. Watching the numbers scratched on to the torn scrap of paper, he drifts to sleep. 

 

Dappled splotches of sunlight filtered through large, fanning leaves paint a leopard’s skin across the boy’s face. His eyes are sharp, untrustworthy almost, watching carefully from between the undergrowth. The wind whistles sharp, drowning out the sound that might have left the boy’s mouth in a whisper when his lips part. 

Vanishing, the glittering white of his eyes disappearing from sight, the boy is not to be found. Kyung’s heart flutters with a spike of panic, becoming tangled in scrambling nerves. _Where have you gone, where are you now,_ he asks, reaching out to run fingers through the air, feeling the ghost of who had been. 

He tramples through thick brush, dense carpet of plant life clinging to his ankles and dragging him into it. Tearing into his flesh with teeth that grow from its depth, it snarls around his skin. He fumbles through it, seeking the boy, searching for who has left him.

The rolling wash of the river beckons him, promising relief to the torn, irritated wounds that have come from the gnawing of the thicket. Blindly, he treads into it. It stings sharply, striking directly to the marrow of his bones. 

Staring into the face of the water, there is only an eerie absence of life. He cannot hear anything beyond the water churning around him, violently rushing towards an end he cannot see, and scraping with it the already tender flesh at his legs.

Dark descends on him. He climbs to shore, clutching fistfuls of earth to ground himself. There are maggots writhing in it, underneath him, eating, eating, eating. 

He turns his face, cheek pressed into the moist, black dirt beneath him, and from the corner of his eyes watches the stars overhead, and with terror he thinks of how they weigh down and could engulf him in their flame. In the face of fear he demands to know: _Where is he now, where has he gone?_

 

Kyung startles awake, fingers curling tight in the blankets around him, heart thudding against his chest. He grabs his jacket and heads for the door, meaning to take a walk to clear his mind, but the paper by the bed beckons to him. Hurriedly he pockets it before rushing out.

He takes his lighter from his jacket pocket and finds the paper with the number caught between his fingers, stubbornly clinging to him. Shaking the lighter free of it, he shoves it back into the corners of his pocket, replacing its place in his hand with a pack of cigarettes.

The cool air calms his mind, or maybe it’s the cigarette. Regardless, it gives him the comfort, soothing the panic that had awoken him. 

He thinks for a long minute, trying to decipher the meaning of what has plagued his mind. Childish, he decides to label it, as it occurs to him again that there is no poetry in life. There's no meaning to it. It was only the same stress that has been nagging him for the past several days that had induced such a feverish hallucination in his slumber. 

Upon conclusion of its unimportance, Kyung is reminded of who he has become, and why he's here. He retrieves the paper from his pocket again and holds it out before himself.

The faint click of the lighter is loud in the empty lot. A quiet, meek flame eats the numbers. It is gone. He is gone. 

How is it that life runs the same cycles regardless of where he finds himself now? He’s outgrown excitement, this is for the best. Whatever had happened in his youth is best left behind. And so, the ashes are gone to the wind. 

 

The dull repeat of his stay in that city leads him to consider cutting the trip short. Ironically, when he was younger running away had seemed a permanent decision, a permanent haven. 

Later that afternoon, he searches the shelves of the closest grocery store for something to eat. There are many people there, but they are all busy in their own lives. Kyung convinces himself he enjoys isolation as such, taking it as time to think. He prefers to keep to himself. 

He is not fully focused on the task of purchasing his own food, and instead busies himself with stealing glances at those around himself. To his left, a woman and man, and who he presumes is their daughter, discuss what type of jam they would like. Kyung wonders when he will find himself in a similar position, not if, as it is bound to happen. 

He is turning away when he notices first, what he believes he must be imagining. 

Across the store, half hidden behind shelves of fresh baked bread, Kyung spots a glimpse of a familiar face. He freezes, remaining fixated on the broad shoulders clad in the black leather of a jacket, and the thick mess of unbrushed hair. 

The man turns as if sensing the weight of the gaze placed upon his back. For a heartbeat, their eyes meet. The man is confused. Kyung shrinks away at how fast the recognition hits him. 

“Kyung?”

Deep, gravelly, laced with disbelief and confusion.

He tenses at the mention of his own name. He freezes completely. 

“Jiho.” 

He has feared this moment for an eternity. However, he has longed for it too. He has lay awake for hours on end, feverishly overcome by thoughts of the enigma that Woo Jiho had become. 

Caught in an in-between moment without words, he shamelessly drinks in the other man’s appearance. This image he has longed for in secret. 

The colorful banners announcing special offers, the rows of produce, the shelves in their entirety, blur in Kyung’s vision as Jiho becomes the central focus of his sight.

It has been over seven years. 

The earth itself has been shifted from its axis, it feels. This man who might as well have died, someone who fell off the face of the planet, is standing there before him now. They had mourned the loss and they had moved on; they had reinvented themselves to accommodate for the vacancy left behind by this person. Kyung had started again. 

But even seven years of pretending could not make the grave he envisioned real, and so, Jiho is not really dead, no matter how Kyung wished him to be. 

Seven long years and somehow, they have found themselves here. 

He used to see this face and lament over having too many words to fit into a single breath. Now he stares and stares and nothing comes to mind. 

The words had burned and until they became no more. Like all things, they had come to an end. _Let go,_ he had learned all those years ago, _Let go_. 

And so, he had.

**Author's Note:**

> I was unsure about posting this because I liked the original story with the ending it had, but I had these drafts sitting around for a long time and decided I might as well polish them and post it as a story and leave it up to you all whether or not its worth the read. I hope some of you found it fun to read~! I think there will be other things eventually, completely unrelated to this story-line. I'm just having a hard time fleshing other AUs out... but there are definitely some wips ;D
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr :D](https://starlunch.tumblr.com/)


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